Monday, March 5, 2012

Don't Fence Me In

After finishing a fence and finding himself with extra wood, my father offered to build me a fence with the leftovers. He thought it would be nice for the chickens to stretch their wings a bit more.

The girls agreed.

You see, the ladies are cooped up when the garden is cooking. They are offered true free range only in early spring, before all the seeds go in, and in fall, before the cover crop is tucked in. Then, they are slug eating machines. Any other time of year, these innocent looking featherheads are nothing short of natural born killers - decimating pumpkin patches and tearing through peas in the click of a beak.

I happily took my father up in his offer. Along side the run, he built a chicken "corral" with both sun and shade. For now, I'm only letting out the tamer girls (Minerva Louise, you are out of luck, sister!) because I have to shuttle them back and forth until we make an opening in the run.

Can't they just fly over the fence, you ask? Theoretically. Most of my girls are too chubby to get off the ground though. Heck, one of them is too fat to flap up to the roost at night. Gotta love cochins. In any event, their girth coupled with the staggering of the top railings seems to mostly deter them - and, will hopefully let my garden grow in peace this spring.

I love that gate! I have to keep my chickens fenced in away from the garden also, since even in the winter and early spring I have chard and winter greens, and lettuce and cilantro that self seed (unless the chickens get to the area first!).

What a fantastic fence and gate--looks wonderful! Well done, Father! I had neighbor's chickens that came over to my garden to visit over the winter. They didn't touch the flower beds at all, but went nuts in the fruit tree row and yard--there must have been slugs and bugs that were more delicious than my perennial crowns! However, the neighbor patched the fence so now they stay home, but I kind of miss them!

Good idea. I would like to make our chickenrun a little bigger this summer. We used to let them free range in the back yard, but I finally decided I wanted my yard back so I could do some landscaping. Chickens and plants don't mix.